Interest Inventories

BRIEF SUMMARY

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In 1927, E.K. Strong, a psychologist, developed the first interest inventory, a tool used to measure individuals’ interests and compare them to those of people working in various occupations. It was called the Strong Vocational Interest Blank. This tool has seen many revisions and name changes over the years. It is now called the Strong Interest Inventory (SII). Dr. John Holland created a system of placing people’s interests into groups. He believed every person’s interests fit into at least one group and most fit into at least two or three groups. One’s personal combination of Holland groups is their Holland Code.

There are other interest inventories, including the Kuder Occupational Interest Survey, Self-Directed Search, and the Campbell Interest and Skill Survey. The O*Net Interest Profiler is a free assessment that is one of the several tools that are part of O*Net Online, a project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration. Interest surveys may measure, for example, your interests regarding leisure activities, work-related activities, people with whom you prefer to work, and school subjects. To get the most accurate results, it is important that students respond to each item as honestly as possible and know that there are no right or wrong answers.